My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1776-1778

Chapter 1776

“Fascinating, truly fascinating.” The workshop master stroked chin as he spoke. “And you said you built this yourself? With your mother and father’s help?”

Terra would have been giving a sheepish look if she had a body that could express such things. “My mother and father did a lot of the work behind the scenes. I’ve been unable to come close to what they accomplished.”

“And, you say that you’re family came from Shie Gescar?”

“That’s… what I always believed.” Her voice was slightly weak. “My time in the dungeon though… some things are harder to remember.”

One way or another, the workshop master had gotten us to tell the entire story of how Terra came to be. He had finally introduced himself as the head of the workshop and had even invited two of his apprentices whom he had originally said were too busy to be bothered to expect her. They were no scrutinizing over Terra with a great deal of interest. She looked embarrassed, but I couldn’t bring myself to be that irritated as long as she remained in that hulking and unfeminine body.

While they examined her, the master asked questions that were very direct and pointed, but I saw no reason we couldn’t tell him the truth. If this helped us rebuild Terra’s body, then it was completely worth it. I noticed that the workshop master had a strange expression on his face when Shie Gescar was mentioned.

“Do you know anything about Shie Gescar?” I asked.

He tilted his head slightly. “Little is known about Shie Gescar to anyone. Every few years, some crazy person decides to attempt to establish a trade route there. Only half of them return, and those were the ones that failed to reach it. It’s segregated from the rest of the world by the Abyss, the impassable mountains, and the violent rapids. There hasn’t been contact with them in at least a few hundred years. That’s why your golem here confuses me so much.”

“What’s so confusing?” I asked.

“It’s confusing that she even exists.”

I blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He lifted a hand. “Take no offense. It’s just that the human soul is a fragile thing. It can only take so much before it dissipates.”

I nodded my head. “Yes, I know about that.”

“Then, you tell me, how does she exist?” He raised an eyebrow.

I opened my mouth, but then I started to think about it and I realized I had been ignoring this for some time.

“She was in the dungeon…” I tried to give the weak answer that I had been offering myself.

“If any human could just have their soul pulled out and implanted into a golem, then how many people would choose to choose to do this?” He shrugged. “You could achieve immortality easily. Even if the bodies weren’t as well built as her own, kings could build unstoppable golem armies made from their slaves, and no one would have to fear death. The reason human life is finite is that our soul is finite. As we grow older, without nourishment from the world stream, our souls slowly become too large and brittle and start to break apart. Of course, the body also breaks down over time, but the soul and body are linked. Simply put, Terra should have died several hundred years ago!”

Chapter 1777

“The dungeon must have reinvigorated her soul somehow.” I suggested.

“Dungeons can copy souls and extend their lives,” he agreed, but before I could say anything else he continued, “but every time they copy the soul, that soul would be corrupted. The fidelity of copying lore is lacking, and dungeons are perhaps the worst at it. At best, she would have had a miasmic soul, and if she had a soul as old as you suggest, the lore would have been corrupted long past the point that she would have been nothing but a monster, trapped within her cursed existence.”

I wanted to argue with him, but he was making sense. It took talking to someone else who was also familiar with golems and dungeons for me to finally see the truth of it. I had known this all along, but I had convinced myself that this was an exception.

“Master…” Terra looked at me worriedly.

“It’s alright, Terra.” I smiled at her. “You did make it through. That’s all that matters. You’re still you.”

“We just don’t know what you are.” The master who was used to dealing with puppets had a lot less finesse, causing me to cringe slightly.

“What does that mean? I knew my mother and father! I’m human.” Terra’s eyes managed to display a hint of panic as she turned to me. “Right, Master?”

I didn’t want to worry Terra, but I wasn’t willing to lie to her either. “You’re… a special existence. Remember in the deep? Your ability to survive and resist Twilight wasn’t normal. Your soul is far more resilient than any being I’ve ever met. That’s what makes you Terra. It’s possible that your parents, and by extension, you, weren’t human. You told me yourself that they were geniuses, refuges of some war, who only fled to Osteria and didn’t belong there.”

“But…” she lowered her head and I wished I could see the expressions on her face, but they were so limited in that body. “I understand. It doesn’t matter what I used to be. I’ve been a golem longer than I had a mortal existence. I’m Master’s guardian. I’m Master’s slave. That’s all that matters.”

As she spoke, her hand tightened. Sapphire put her hand on Terra’s giant rock hand. She was a bit of a quagmire herself. She was nearly as old as Terra, in all likelihood. She had pieced the parts of her soul back together from countless dungeons. Her case was also extremely unusual as well. Although Sapphire tried to give her a bit of sympathy, she wasn’t the best for it. She didn’t handle this emotional crisis as well as some of the other girls.

I still watched Terra for a few moments, making sure that she was going to be alright, but I still had the most important question to ask. “However the likelihood of Terra’s existence, the reality is that she does exist. Can you help us restore her to her original golem body, or improve on it?”

“Ah…” He looked down, his highbrow attitude dropping like a deflated balloon. “As to that, I don’t believe I’d be able to help you.”

Chapter 1778

“You can’t help, or you won’t?” My expression darkened slightly.

“Deek…” Pait tried to caution me as I took a step forward.

I could seriously say that 90% of this trip had been planned specifically for Terra. If Jespain couldn’t remake her body, then this was all just a waste of time and effort in my mind. That soured my mood considerably. If he was just going to hold back information because of some trade secrets, I was no longer going to be polite.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help!” He panicked slightly, waving his hand. “It’s that the body as you describe it is even outside of this workshop’s ability!”

“I thought you were the best golem workshop on the continent?” I demanded.

His face turned red. “I stand by those words, but the golems we make here are still just golems. They don’t look human, let alone are certified for combat! Even this current body is a marvel to me. Most of those metals and alloys I’ve never even seen before. Her strength could tear apart even my strongest defensive golem. As for making her appear human, anybody I made at the size would be as brittle as glass, and the appearance would be doll-like and skin deep.

“Terra is a sentient being, and the body constructed from her was indistinguishable from a real body. I can’t even imagine how to make something harder than a rock, but still soft to the touch. As for being sexually functional, if I could do that, you think I’d waste my time in this lab when I could be… ahem… I mean to say that such a technology doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Any more?” I caught onto his slip immediately, and I could see his face turn slightly white. “You’re saying there was a time that such technology existed? You said that this technology came from a dungeon, right? Which dungeon? Where?”

“That…” He started to look sheepish. “Such things are trade-”

“I don’t care about trade secrets!” I snapped.

“You’re out of line.” The esmere diplomate cut in, only for Pait to grab his arm and stop him from stepping between us, despite only coming up to the workshop master’s stomach.

I softened my expression, seeing the fear in the apprentice’s eyes. “I just want to give the woman I love everything she deserves. If you help me, I’ll give you everything I have on our golem construction. We both know that you have just as much to gain as I do.”

“Master…” Terra spoke softly, but my eyes were locked on the workshop master.

His expression was filled with temptation, but then it was followed by regret. “The lore in question was provided to us by the soothsayer. It was lore she discovered in the Abyss, and there is no more like it. The Abyss is a lore eater. It consumes lore throughout time and space. That means that the lore found there was unique and could have come from anywhere, possibly Shie Gescar, or possibly somewhere else. Plus, the lore is difficult to understand. Even I’ve only been allowed to look upon it once, and I barely gained any insight.”

So, that was it. They didn’t have a means of constructing a new body for Terra. They seemed to be better at building AI and making finer and more utilitarian golems, all issues we had with our golems, but it only went that far. However, all wasn’t lost. The last thing he said brought me particular interest.

“This lore…” I leaned forward. “Where is it?”